Last resident of Fremantle Port sells cottage after five-decade holdout

Wedged between shipping containers, a train line and a busy road for freight, Carmel Mullally still loved her patch of paradise even as neighbours disappeared and the Fremantle Port expanded.

The ‘lady who lives in the port’ had knocked back offers by the state government to buy her North Fremantle house since the 1960s and was finally able to breathe a sigh of relief her home would not be bulldozed in 2007 when the local council added the cottage to its heritage register.

Her home will not be flattened, but old age forced Mrs Mullally from the yellow weatherboard last year.

And in a final twist her cottage was sold to Fremantle Ports, which had tried to get a hold of the property after the area, once made up of rows of similar cottages where Mrs Mullally’s father had also grown up and a deli, was rezoned in 1963 to port use.

Fremantle Ports first offered $5800 for Mrs Mullally to move in 1967 before upping its proposed payout to $10,000.

Mrs Mullally simply would not sell and painted slogans on the outside walls of her home asking people to ‘help save me from the port authority’.

Another offer from the government for $105,000 was rejected by Mrs Mullally in the 1990s as she did not see a good reason why she should have to sell and thought she could put her 324-square-metre property to better use than the ports.

“The whole affair has been like a Shakespeare play,” she told Fremantle Focus in 1990.